


Call and Answer

by romanticalgirl



Category: British Actor RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-05 01:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you court this disaster, I'll point you home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Call and Answer

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 1-27-08

It’s a little reminiscent of a crucifixion, though not in the way that there are crosses burning and Madonna singing in the background or anything of the sort, but the look in Ioan’s eyes is very much reminiscent of someone who’s just found out his best friend is a bit of a Judas.

Which isn’t exactly true. No pounds of flesh or pieces of silver, really. Just a few beers and a quick shag, but it was Ioan’s birthday, so really if anyone was to get laid, it should have been him. And as Matthew had been something of a master of ceremonies, it might have been in bad taste to disappear in the middle of the toasts and have one off with the pretty barmaid who looked a little bit like Audrey Hepburn if he was drunk enough and closed his eyes a bit.

“Hey.”

Ioan flips him off and goes back to watching the telly, the sound off as it’s well past two in the morning. Matthew toes off his shoes and pads over to the couch, sitting on the other end and glancing at what Ioan’s watching. “Oh. The Prisoner. Aces.”

The telly goes black and the room’s left in a bit of a hazy grey glow. Matthew turns to protest, only to get beaned upside the head with the remote.

“Ouch!”

“Better than you deserve, you arse.” Ioan pushes off the couch and goes into the bedroom, obviously having said more than he intended. His door slams shut, shaking the thin walls, and Matthew braces himself for the pounding that’s inevitable from Mr. Belmont in 7A.

Matthew waits until the noise dies down and then goes to Ioan’s door, tapping on it lightly. He hears something that he doesn’t quite get, but he’s relatively certain that Ioan’s not gotten any more pleased with him after Mr. Belmont called them both a duo of flaming fucking retards. Matthew reminds Ioan that they need to send that brochure on political correctness to Mr. Belmont and this time it’s perfectly clear what Ioan says, and Matthew’s not quite sure the last time he’s blushed.

“You do kiss your mother with that mouth, you know.”

Ioan’s door swings open and he jabs his finger into Matthew’s chest. “You are a fucking arse, Matthew Rhys Evans. You’re thoughtless, cruel and a complete and utter…” He stops, flustered and flushed and completely unable to find an insult good enough if Matthew can read his face at all.

“Wanker?” Matthew suggests. “Jerk? Bastard? Twat? Prick?”

Ioan leans in. “I fucking hate you.”

Matthew takes a step back, anything that had been close to teasing gone. Ioan’s said the words with such vitriol; Matthew’s not sure what to do, much less how to react. “You what?”

“You’re thoughtless, Matthew. Thoughtless and a complete and utter prick.”

“I suggested prick.” He can’t do anything but make jokes, his outer defenses reacting while he’s reeling on the inside.

“No surprise it was at the front of your mind, since it’s all you bloody think with.” Ioan slams his door again, turning the small and completely useless lock. Matthew knows a symbolic gesture when he sees one though, so he just stands there and stares at the knob he only has to turn to go inside.

After a moment of silence, he nods and presses his hand to the door, leaning against it and speaking softly. “Happy birthday, Ioan.”

**

Matthew’s shit at making coffee, but he does it anyway, following the instructions as best he can on the coffee maker and on the can. He’s fairly certain four seems a large number of scoops for just four cups of water, but he thinks that’s what it says, and given he’s had no sleep and even less rest, he can’t help but err on the side of caution, so he adds two more for good measure. The smell itself is making him a little less blurred around the edges, but he’s been tossing and turning on the couch in clothes that smell like beer and smoke, but he couldn’t risk Ioan sneaking out at daybreak.

Not that Ioan’s seen daybreak since he was around ten, Matthew thinks, but still. Err on the side of caution. Better safe than sorry. Especially since he doesn’t have any fucking clue what he’s done.

Ioan stumbles in two hours later in a pair of tattered and ripped boxers and little else, grunting at Matthew something that’s either a greeting, a curse or a completely different language. He makes a beeline for the coffee pot and Matthew’s grateful he hasn’t touched it, because Ioan looks even worse than Matthew did when he risked a glance in the mirror on the way back from taking a piss.

Leaning against the counter as he pours, Ioan curves one hand around the cup and tips the pot. He sets the pot back on the burner and bends his head over the cup; a daily ritual that Matthew treats with all the reverence Ioan offers it. After a moment, he takes the first sip, nearly choking as he tries to drink it down.

“What is this shit?”

Matthew frowns, fairly certain something’s gone wrong again. “Coffee?”

“Perhaps if coffee were a torture device, yes.” Ioan dumps his cup and pours out the pot, making a new one. Matthew thinks to watch halfway through and gives it up as a lost cause. Ioan’s silent, which is never a good sign, because Ioan’s _never_ silent, so Matthew hunches over his own cup of tea and wonders if leaving now would be an act of extreme cowardice or a sense of self-preservation.

“May I ask…” He falters as Ioan turns around to look at him. Ioan’s face is always serious in some ways, even when he’s smiling, but it’s also always smiling, even when he’s serious. Right now is apparently an exception to this, because nothing about Ioan’s face holds the least measure of amusement. “Perhaps not.”

“Coffee.” Ioan informs him flatly and then turns around and stares at the glass pot as the dark brown liquid starts to spit and hiss and eventually fall inside.

“Right.” Matthew drinks the rest of his tea, not caring that it’s gone cold. He was raised to believe that tea cures all ills, and he would suggest such to Ioan if he didn’t think it would get him killed and, despite its rumored restorative powers, he’s relatively certain tea can’t fix that one.

Ioan waits until the entire pot has perked, not doing his usual trick of pulling the pot away and slipping his cup beneath it, needing that morning fix far more than he has the patience to wait. The fact that he is waiting does little to make Matthew feel anything resembling better. When he finally pours his cup full, Matthew swallows hard deciding that self-preservation is really the way to go.

“Did you have a nice night?”

The question completely throws his mind of the single track it’s been running on since he arrived home, and he stares at Ioan, his mouth open, no doubt looking very much like a cod. “P-pardon?”

“A nice night.” Ioan’s as pleasant as the Queen on Sunday, sitting across the table from Matthew. Ioan always stirs his coffee, even though he takes it black, an affectation that hides that he never quite knows what to do with his hands. “Did you have one?”

Matthew knows a trick question when he hears one, and this time is no exception. The problem being, of course, that he has no idea how to answer it without getting himself covered in a cup of very hot, well-stirred coffee.

“I’ve…had better?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Ioan’s got something that, any other day of the year would be classified as a smile, but today seems a bit more sinister.

“Telling?”

His eyebrow goes up and Matthew wonders if he should refill his tea and arm himself should a battle of beverages start up at any given moment. The last one they’d had had involved very sudsy beer and shrieking laughter. This one, he fears, will just involve shrieking. “Well. That’s lovely.”

“You are completely frightening me, Ioan.”

“Am I?” His voice breaks slightly and Matthew nearly melts with relief. Suddenly all the signs flash to life and Matthew wonders how he didn’t see them before. Ioan’s spoon is in his right hand, which it never is, and he’s not got his socks on, and most telling of all, Ioan’s calm. Ioan’s never calm when he’s normal. He’s not calm unless he’s horribly, horribly hurt or disappointed.

Matthew’s relieved realization, upon realizing this, is understandably short-lived.

“You don’t really hate me, do you?”

“I should.” Ioan looks away from him, jaw clenched. “I should hate you quite a lot.”

“Because I’m a prick.” It’s not a question. It’s been established, even if he’s not exactly sure which prickish thing he’s actually done.

“You are. A complete and utter prick.” This time Ioan stirs his coffee with his left hand and Matthew remembers to breathe. “Thoughtless and unfeeling and loutish. Yes. Loutish.”

“Loutish.”

Ioan snaps around to face him. “Yes. Loutish.”

“Right. Right. Loutish. Absolutely.” Matthew nods lest he set Ioan off or send him scurrying back to where he was just moments before. Matthew can handle Ioan off balance, as it’s his apparent natural state. He can’t handle Ioan acting anything resembling emotionally mature. “What exactly did I do?”

“It was my birthday.” Ioan says it so softly that it takes Matthew a moment to be sure he’s heard it right. He looks up at Matthew and those eyes of his are big and sad and remind Matthew of some poor begging orphan in some old movie. “And you knew that.”

“Yes. That’s rather why I threw you a party.” He’s sort of loathe to mention it at this point, since he’s quite aware that he slagged off his responsibilities at said party, and he’s not completely sure that’s not why Ioan’s angry with him.

“I know.” Ioan turns the eyes on the coffee mug, which stands up to them much better than Matthew ever has.

“I realize it was rather a shit party and I was a shit at it. I mean, I was rather rude and a horrid host of sorts, and there’s really no excuse for it other than she was rather lovely in the light of the bar, which is incredibly deceptive, I have to admit, and I feel bad that I blew you off for someone who was less Audrey Hepburn and more that scary niece of that woman from your mother’s women’s group.”

“Why did you throw me a party, Matthew?”

“It’s your birthday. Was your birthday. It’s what you do. It’s actually rather why they call them birthday parties.”

“I turned twenty-two.”

“I’m aware of that as well, Ioan. I mean, I know we’re rather doing the whole drama thing, but my mum and da were very strict about me learning to count, even as far as one hundred, so I don’t see what the…oh, fuck.”

Ioan’s smile twitches ever so slightly and he picks up the coffee mug to hide it, but it’s far too late.

“Oh, bloody _fuck_.” Matthew slaps the table hard and then winces. “Ouch.”

“Deserve it.”

“Yes.” Matthew sighs and runs his sore hand through his roughshod curls. “I do. Shit, Ioan. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s bloody not okay. We were to…shit.” Matthew slumps in his seat and frowns angrily at his empty teacup. “Why didn’t you remind me? You’re supposed to remind me.”

“I can’t remember to pay the water bill.”

“You remembered this. Obviously. Shit.” Matthew slumps even further, raising his glare to Ioan a bit. “You’re _enjoying_ this.”

“Just a little.”

Matthew fights his own laugh that threatens at the base of his throat. “I hate you too, you know. Wanker.”

“Prick.”

“Guess that means we’re for sure to be best mates.” Matthew reaches for Ioan’s hand and squeezes it lightly. “Can still do it. Next weekend.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” Matthew nods and squeezes tighter, matching the hard pressure of Ioan’s hand gripping his. “Won’t let you down.”

Ioan nods, serious again despite his smile. “You never do.”  



End file.
